GILLIAN MCIVER, CURATOR

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Monday, 9 January 2017

“The most important mechanism for interpreting visual art is your own
eyes and your ability to really see and to really look…..Go, stand in
front of the work of art, literally, physically, look at it. Walk
around it, look at its texture, look at its colour…”

Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c. 1598) by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection of Madrid.

Here is a short 15 min podcast that I made during a lecture I gave at the IF Project in London on 'how to interpet visual art'

Monday, 31 October 2016

I have been invited by FiLiArt to curate a screening of films made by women, that explore 'female experience' in all its variety.13TH OF NOVEMBER6 pm HACKNEY PICTUREHOUSE ATTIC270 Mare St, London E8 1HEStations: Hackney Central, Bethnal Green

Discover the surprising, moving and inspiring truths of women's experiences at this rare screening event, bringing together the work of some of London's best female filmmakers.

FiLiArt Women on Screen will showcase a selection of films, from documentary to drama, art films to vox pops, the night will expose women’s experience in all its diversity, range and dynamism.

The programme will include short art films by Alice Anderson, Julia Riddiough, Greta Mendez, Annalise Holles and Natalie Smith; also on show will be Shake it Off! a drama by Sian Astor Lewis and character performances by Liberty Antonia Sadler.

Also featuring will be Rozy Sarkis’s feature documentary Image Matters, about the culture of cosmetic surgery in Lebanon, and Elam Forrester’s portrait of Amanda Gonzales, a former guerrilla fighter turned women’s activist in El Salvador.

The screening will conclude with a panel discussion hosted by Gillian McIver, filmmaker (Taking Over the King’s Land, 2014) and author (Art History for Filmmakers, 2016).

The panel will be participatory, featuring the filmmakers themselves, and inviting the audience to address the shared themes of their work and the challenges of female-led filmmaking.

* Women on Screen will raise funds for FiLiArt:Refuge, an art exhibition, symposium and workshop to be held at Oxford House from 9-16 December, a fully non-profit venture.

About FiLiArt

Over the last three years, FiLiArt has been London’s only annual exhibition to bring together contemporary feminist art, current activism and academia. Alongside work by established and emerging female artists, we provide a platform for the artistic voices of minority and marginalised women.

Saturday, 7 June 2014

TAKING OVER THE KING'S LAND is a documentary film I made about a site speciifc art project I was involved in curating.

The film is out now and has been to the Sheffield Docfest, the UK's biggest and most important film festival for documentaries, the Portobello Film Festival in London and more.

Arts docs are notoriously difficult to place since many people associate the documentary genre to social issues, or art history. TAKING OVER THE KING'S LAND is a portrait of a an artist, and a quite remarkable project in the world's greatest metropolis.

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

This is the slideshow I developed for the South London Arts Forum (SAF) talk I gave earlier this year. They have made it available as I requested, and so here it is.
It's basically rundown of what I have learned in a decade o f being an artist and curator. It may be useful to some.
The gist of it is, "you can do it, if you want it badly enough."

Friday, 7 February 2014

Yesterday I went along to the Southwark Arts Forum to take part in their conference THE ART OF MAKING MONEY
It was really interesting and I wanted to share the list of excellent speakers, together with their websites so you can have a look yourselves:

The Speakers:

Alex Chinneck – Visual Artist and Designer
– His large public work has been featured in The New York Times, The
Guardian, BBC and Dezeen Magazine. The London-based artist also runs a
successful Furniture Design business..Alex was honest and fun, and his work is AMAZING

Gillian McIver - Canadian artist and film maker based in London. Co-founder of the award-winning artist-run organisation Studio75, focusing on curating and creating opportunities for artist development. Well, that would be me...

Victoria Sin – Illustrator Designer
- Sony, Paloma Faith and Vice Magazine amongst the list of clients of
this entrepreneurial student, who is regularly commissioned work and
sells her art-work online to her strong customer base. Such nice work!

Claire Meredith - Speaker, Writer and Coach. She
works with individuals who have an ‘itch’ to live in adventure;
challenging, encouraging and inspiring them towards their best lives.
She regularly presents the fortnightly Creative Hub podcast, Hatch.Claire talked about self-confidence - why we need it and how we can have it.

I can't pretend I could tell everyone how to make money but I hope I told them how to avoid wasting money. In my talk I emphasized that an artist's life plan (I prefer that term instead of "career") is totally individual, but that most things can be done if you set yourself the talk to using your creativity to find a way to do them. Alex's talk pretty much fit with mine in that sense, though his work is very different. I certainly met some interesting and dynamic folks at the conference; I think SAF are doing a great job.

windy wet day in Peckham Rye, but totally worth the trek out to get there: